I participated in a panel at ALA2009 with some cool people called The Ultimate Debate: Has Library 2.0 Fulfilled its Promise? It was fun! I was sent “starter questions” beforehand – and of course, since this was a live discussion, we hit them in different ways.

I thought you might find my “starter answers” interesting, so here they are:

What does Library 2.0 mean to you?

How am I supposed to answer that? It means … “a job!” I usually say it’s two things: 1. web 2.0, as it affects libraries; and 2. some of the underlying philosophies of web 2.0, but applied to non-techie things in a library. Ideas like patron-centered change and participation in the creation of content and community. Doing things a different, non-librarian way would be included here. Things like getting rid of Dewey.

What are we trying to solve with these technologies?

Connecting with community online. Old style websites connected patrons to info. 2.0 sites still do that, but also let you: interact with the content; interact with the creator of that content; and interact with staff and other patrons. It’s sorta like … visiting the library. For real. You can actually “do stuff” there. For me, that’s the goal – when you visit my library’s website, you should be visiting the library. I look at 2.0 tools as helping us get there.

Will these technologies help libraries or are they just hype?

None of the major, popular tools are hype in and of themselves, I don’t think. Yes, they can be HYPED, but they’re not hype. Facebook and twitter being mentioned on Oprah and Conan O’Brien? Hype. Me conducting real business using those tools? Not hype.

Which libraries are leading the way in implementing 2.0 technologies?

TSCPL! Darien Library. Lots of other libraries doing parts and pieces of this…

Are there particular types of libraries (academic, school, etc) that are more involved?

Not sure there’s a more/less involved thing. But it’s different angles to similar problems. Public libraries are doing a lot with blogs for public consumption, and doing a lot with IM reference and gaming. I know academic libraries are focused on making courseware more social … not sure I really know if there’s larger emphases in general with academic libraries or special libraries (would love for someone to chime in here!). There are a TON of tools, and everyone’s using them in a different way, to meet different goals.

Do these technologies make the most sense for a particular user base? Who is best served by them?

Particular user base? Not really – it’s more a specific skill-level base, which stretches across many user bases. Please no one tell me that you should use Facebook to attract college students … my MOM is is a big-time gamer on Facebook, for peet’s sake! There are national demographics you can look at – so more younger than older, but that’s changing.

“Who is best served by them” – figure out what target audiences YOU want to reach, then match the tool to the group. Young professionals? Twitter and Facebook. 35-year old moms? Facebook. Want more interaction on your website, more community interaction? Blogs and people who have computers!

Where is the profession in adopting 2.0 technologies?

We’re all across the board. There’s people like the ones giving this presentation … and there are librarians that would rather not ever touch a computer, let alone a cell phone. Poll – how many people don’t know how to send a text message on your phone (ok – this works better in a presentation than in my blog… I know ALL my readers can send text messages … right?)? How many KNOW of someone you work with that can’t do that? … and txt messaging is one of the older 2.0 technologies.

What are the barriers we face?

Staff not wanting to change and staff not leading the way. I know an urban public library where the web guy and the director want to do things, but they say “our staff won’t buy that.” Do you hear that? They’re letting the staff control what happens… even though they’re in a hip college town.

Wrong thinking about patrons. Librarians tell me – “oh, our patrons don’t do that.” But then, I find out that they’re only talking about “the regulars.” You know, those 100 or so people that you know by name, that use your services heavily every day. We have those. We also did a GIS studay, and found out our biggest potential growth segment in Shawnee county are the upper middle class types who live outside of the city. Many of them aren’t yet our patrons. We need to be asking THEM what they want … not the people coming in the door every day.

Why are some libraries not having success implementing 2.0 technologies?

Didn’t set strategy and goals.
didn’t assign more than 1-2 people to do it
didn’t focus on a target audience
Considered it “extra work”
Wasn’t part of their annual review
wasn’t a priority for individual/for the library

Or… poor content. Can’t write well = no one’s going to read your blog

Are Library 2.0 technologies worth it?

YES. Is having multiple daily conversations with your community worth it? Is answering real questions of your patrons worth it? Is allowing your patrons to add their own thoughts and creativity to something worth it? How about having a new, fairly inexpensive service point/branch? YES.

What aspects/technologies are most or least worth the time to implement?

Really depends on the organization and the customers you’re aiming at. This is key. Example – Is txt msg reference service to senior citizens worth it? Probably not.

What is more hype than substance?

Again, nothing’s hype in and of itself. Ashton Kutcher is hype. Twitter is not.

What is one 2.0 technology you would suggest to libraries?

Two things: What’s new blog. Facebook Page.

What’s next after 2.0?

Nirvana. Joke! Seriously…
- becoming ubiquitous. More people reading RSS feeds … when the print newspapers all disappear sooner than we all think. You’ll want to figure out RSS then, to save the reader’s time.
- Becoming easier. Video on the web – 4 years ago, it was pretty advanced stuff. Today, it’s a Flip camera and youtube. Simple.
- A lot more crazy change. I don’t think we’ve hit the peak yet in terms of technology changes. I think the rollercoaster’s just starting up the hill.

Speakers – Joan Frye Williams and George Needham

georgeandjoan.com

The Classic Objections:
- it will never work
- we tried that…
- our patrons etc won’t like it ..
- etc

Stop thinking of the Library Experience as the library experience. When we talk about that, we usually focus on what we do.

They’ve visited lots of libraries, and found out there’s not often a true customer focus.

We need to think more about what the user does, and who they are!

Joan mentioned TSCPL! They love our mission statement – “you know us, and we know you.” (cool – I wrote that part

Being held back by confidentiality – we often go for ignorance & call it privacy and confidentiality

The independent user is invisible to us.

Re-imagine the user experience!!! Yes. The experience belongs to the user.

If we imagine the user as our audience, we get mad when they don’t applaud us. Interesting thought…

Patrons should start feeling successful right when they walk into the library – just like when they use google (ie., there’s no user manual for google)

situational signage

Shouldn’t have to use our jargon just to get started (hmm… databases fails here…)

Environments that learn from and adapt to the user is the right way to go

New ways to experience library service – layered services. A way to unfold what the library offers

Time: layer services depending on how much time the patron has
Ex – quick start guide vs complete manuals
So – set up libraries for both the “I have no time” patron tot he “I can spend a day here” patron

Place: layer services by place.
- the users aren’t remote – the services are.
- the library experience takes place outside the library.
- all social networking, web, etc certainly does. iPhone apps, Facebook are examples
- Showing barcodes on signs – scan it with phone, get local info – b-tags.
- me – could you set up a b-tag for a “fact of the day” and put it in a park/mall/on the street/in a school? Hmm…

Make sure it’s always about them, never about us

First Impressions:
- how does your place look on a first impression?
- how many of you use the same doors/bathrooms as the patron?

Get out from behind the desk

Org chart/service points – circ desk, ref desk, etc. For the patron, it’s all part of the same story.

First point of contact – driving around building, walking into the library, etc. Who does the intercept? Usually the shelver.
- deploy staff around the library, standing up – you will increase the number of interactions
- make this intercept so that everyone, building, etc can make that intercept universal

Triage – figuring out some choice to make.
- we act as if we are the arbiters of triage (ie., the reference interview). Instead, most people do this themselves. You watch the other people instead of talking to staff. It HAS to be self-service.

I have a stupid question… translation – your library, setup, etc  just made someone feel stupid. Not a good thing.

Outcomes: When a patron needs to use a computer to do a job search, the goal isn’t to find a guide or do a job search … it’s to find a job.

Patrons are looking for staff that want to enter into their success…
- gave an example of an academic library – student said here’s what you do – find a librarian you can work with, who seems to care, and they will help you ace any class. Didn’t say they will help you find a book… They are looking for success, and we need to set up our libraries that way.

Main goal – get people to come back – it’s all about relationships… not stuff.

Revitalize your point of view.

“Libraries are at a crossroads” – actually, everyone’s at a crossroads. Successful libraries help guide people through their crossroads. There are a lot of common ones – ie., birth, marriage, divorce, retirement, getting a job, etc.

Wane Gretsky – “I don’t skate to the puck, I state to where the puck is going to be.” Libraries can do this, too – we know some common transformations/crossroads – so how can we be there at those crossroads for them?

Communication of meaning – that’s the business we’re in. Google can’t do this. We should be building this across the community. It’s not transactional, it’s not about the stuff. The setup of transformation is a heck of a job to be in.

Staff is also at a crossroads:
- start treating people like they’re smart and independent.
- presumption of innocence – don’t defend against potential disaster.
- the reference desk – feels like the seat of shame.
- respect and remember their preferences.
- look for ways to say yes.

Give respect and get respect – you have to treat every connection as if it has a transformative potential.

The library experience has that long, transformative view. It’s not about the transaction.

OK… I’m a card-carrying member of the American Library Association, and it’s voting time again. Every year, we vote for a president (and a lot of other stuff). This year, there are two candidates for ALA President – Kent Oliver and Roberta Stevens. Both fine, highly qualified people, I’m sure (though I’ve never met either one).

As a web-centric, social media loving geekboy, here’s what I noticed when I visited their websites:

Roberta Stevens:

• Cool. She has a website.
• Dated design … looks like a fine site from the year 1999
• big fat Donate button (actually the first thing I noticed)
• where’s the RSS feed … hey, wait a minute … why isn’t this a blog-based site with commenting?
• a mish-mash of text links that point to videos, photos, podcasts, webpages, and pdf files
• a link to a Facebook Fan page
• Ah – there’s her blog – one of the many text links points to it.
• Oops – I clicked through to her blog. She has embedded a YouTube video there …  but it broke her blog template.

Kent Oliver:

• Cool. He has a website too. A nicely designed site, looks a bit like Obama’s recent campaign site
• it’s a blog – the RSS feed is right there, where it should be (subscribed)
• two quick links to platform and qualifications
• a Donate Now button that blends in with the rest of the site
• an embedded video (used blip.tv – coolness)
• Flickr images, embedded on the main page so I can see them…
• a search box!
• no one’s commented on his blog posts yet (currently displaying big 0’s beside each post)
• Oops – just clicked on Platform. Instead of getting his actual platform, I got two more links… same with the Qualifications link.

Honestly, once I get past all that stuff and take a peek at their actual platforms, it’s all the usual stuff (diversity, more money, support privacy, etc) – nothing that stands out as remarkably interesting to me, a lover of all things web (which is a reflection of ME, not them ).

But – looking at the two lists above … who do you think “gets it?” Who either understands new online media, or at least knows who to ask for help? Will that sway my vote (and the votes of many others)? Probably so.

Yes, understanding “the new stuff” is definitely important, and can make or break a campaign.

Guess what? It’s time to do a bunch of voting for ALA members! I’m a member of LITA – actually, it’s because of LITA and primarily the BIGWIG Interest Group that I’m active in ALA at all – BIGWIG is doing some amazingly innovative things. Well, for a large, unruly association, that is. But it’s a start!

That said, here’s my personal endorsement for the LITA election:

• Karen Starr – I love this quote: “The innovators and leaders of tomorrow are the LITA members of today. It is refreshing to work with a dynamic group on the national level who care, who want to define that future and who come together to work on what the big picture should look like.” She’s describing me!
• Aaron Dobbs – no brainer for me. We went to library school together, and both worked on an early grant-funded project, the Scholar’s Workstation. Aaron’s not slowed down since then.
• Maurice York – He’s also realizing libraries are at a turning point, and that LITA can help: “I believe that LITA is positioned to represent the potential of a responsive and flexible professional organization to play an important role in shaping the profession at this critical turning point.”

So – make sure to vote! once that packet arrives (hmm … mine hasn’t shown up yet …).

*obviously this represents my own personal viewpoint, and not the viewpoint of ALA, LITA, BIGWIG, etc, etc.*

Photo by Theresa Thompson

Just a quick video from ALA. Here’s some of what I did on Monday… enjoy!

ALCTS President’s Program: Breaking Down the Silos: Planning for Discovery in Library 2.0 – an ALCTS Midwinter Symposium

Marshall Breeding – title of his presentation: Next Generation Library Interfaces: Overview of concepts and a brief tour of commercial and open source products

My random notes from Marshall’s presentation:

Started with OCLC Perceptions stat – where do you start an info search? 89% search engines… library catalogs, 2%

usage of library websites is going down, everything else is going up … hmm…

aside – that makes a good case for sticking library content on blogs… users will find you that way

Crowded landscape of info providers on the web – google, amazon, us, etc…

Nobody has to go to a bibliographic instruction class to use Amazon… Nice.

Amazon is so easy to use – Marshall accidentally bought a book during a presentation, it’s so easy

Demand for compelling library interfaces:

urgent need for libraries to offer interfaces their users will like to use
move into the current millenium
search in line with how the current web works

inadequacy of ILS OPACs:

OPAC modules … failing to meet customer needs – it’s not really built for customers

Change is Underway! Lots of movement to break out of the current mold of library catalogs

Marshall hopes the back end will be redesigned, too, to be more modern

Next-Generation Interfaces:

redefinition of the library catalog – the word “catalog” is not a good one

more elegant presentation (think amazon)

more comprehensive info discovery environments
no longer enough to provide a catalog limited to print resources
digital resources cannot be an afterthought
systems designed for e-content only are also problematic
forcing users to use different interfaces depending on types of content becoming less tenable

federated search currently operates as a plug-in component of next-gen interfaces

web 2.0 flavorings:

strategic infrastructure + web 2.0
a more social and collaborative approach
web tools and tech that foster collaboration
integrated blogs, wiki, user reviews, etc
avoid 2.0 info silos – don’t have separate blogs, wikis, etc – make sure it’s integrated

2.0 supporting tech:

web services, xml apis, ajax, relevancy-based search engines, social networking tools and concepts

scope of the next gen library interface:
attempt to collapse silos or draw appropriately from each silo
unified user experience
single point of entry into everything
print + electronic
local + remote
locally created content

Functions and features:
Interface features/user experience:
simple point of entry – optional advanced search
relevancy ranked results
facets for narrowing and navigation
query enhancement – spell check, etc
suggested related results / recommendation service
enriched visual and textual content
single sign-on

Relevancy Ranking:
Endeca, Lucene do a good job
web users expect this! – the good stuff should be listed first
users tend not to delve deep into a result list
good relevancy requires a sophisticated approach

new paradigm for search and navigation:
users drill down through the result set and faceted browsing
faceted search – gives users clues about eh the number of hits, etc – it’s more like an online store’s faceted/guided navigation
more visual, has navigational bread crumbs

talking about boolean – walmart doesn’t teach their customers to do fancy boolean search to get to their products… we shouldn’t do this either!

Amazon doesn’t say “no results found.” Did you Mean and other features instead
validated spell check
have More Like This recommendation service
goal – make the query and the response to it better than the query provided

appropriate organizational structures:
LCSH vs FAST (faceted application of subject terminology)
full marc vs dublin core or MODS, or unstructured data
discipline-specific thesauri or ontologies
“tags”

enriched content – book jacket, summaries, etc

personalization/single sign on

deep search:
entering post-metadata search era
web searches full text. Google print, google publisher, open content alliance, etc
high quality metadata will improve search precision
commercial search providers already offer search inside the book
library search doesn’t do this!!!

Beyond discovery to fulfillment / delivery: this is the harder part – harder than discovery

Enterprise integration:
ability to deliver content and services through non-library apps
courseware, portals, social networking environments, etc

Great Benefit, Great Cost

We’re WAY TOO SLOW. Time on the web moves quickly! We need to catch up.

ideas to buy/use:

Endeca – one of the first
Widely used in the commercial world
high-dollar approach

aquabrowser:

LibraryThing for Libraries:
Wow – they are now distributed exclusively by RR Bowker

Primo: tailored for academic libraries

Encore from Innovative Interfaces (Nashville Public Library uses it)

Worldcat Local

TLCs LS2 (Shanandoah Public Library)
good visual design

SirsiDynix Enterprise
not aware of anyone actually using it yet
it’s a hosted product
does relevancy wel
uses chilifresh for book reviews
Marshall’s example is very ugly! Sirsi really needs a visual designer!

Scriblio:
Wordpress – looks great
Marshall’s not sure how it will scale
same stuff – faceted search, relevance, etc

VUFind:
production cat for the National Library of Australia – that’s pretty big.
open source, looks great

BiblioCommons
focuses on social networking
tag, review, comments, etc
oakville public library in ontario – in production.
Looks great!

Summon
serials solutions produst
eXtensibe Catalog

Polaris, Koha, Evergreen – doing well with providing next-gen features too

Q/A:

question/comment: we have a next-gen catalog, our faculty don’t get it – don’t understand faceted search, don’t know what a tag cloud is, etc – how do you get around that?

Answer: well, Amazon doesn’t seem to need to explain their faceted search, tag, etc stuff… ouch!

Some of you probably saw me wandering around ALA2008 with a Flip video camera… well, here’s why: ALA let me borrow one of their cameras! Daniel Kraus, the guy behind most of the videos on AL Focus (a cool blog from ALA) lent me one of their Flip cameras, and asked me to fill it with video of the conference. So I did – then mailed it back to Daniel, who miraculously edited my video mess into a pretty cool video snippet of the conference.

Check out the video (originally posted at AL Focus):

I was a panelist at the OCLC Symposium preconference event. It was a blast – there were some great speakers, too, including:

• keynote speaker, Michael Schrage, author of Shared Minds—The New Technologies of Collaboration and columnist for CIO and MIT’s Technology Review
• Susan Gibbons, Associate Dean, Public Services & Collection Development, University of Rochester (NY) River Campus Libraries
• Mary Beth Sancomb-Moran, Librarian, University of Minnesota, Rochester
• and me…

If you missed the presentations, never fear! You can view the video version! Go to this page and choose the Mashed Up Library event (currently only viewable using Internet Explorer).

Lynn Hahn, Youth Services Librarian at Bethel Park Public Library and I presented Library 2.0 & Children’s Services at the American Library Association’s annual conference held in Anaheim, CA. We had fun!

Here’s a link to my presentation and Lynn’s presentation (who graciously allowed me to post it to my blog).

Enjoy!

I’m gearing up for ALA 2008 in Anaheim CA next week! Wow, that’s coming up fast. I’ll be there the whole time, and giving three presentations. Here’s when I’m speaking:

• Friday, June 27 – OCLC Symposium: The Mashed-Up Library. I’m talking about mashing up websites, etc.
• Saturday, June 28 – LITA BIGWIG Social Software Showcase. The presentation is done (you can go listen now), but the discussion at the Showcase will be a blast – come join in the fun at my table or the others!
• Sunday, June 29 – Library 2.0 and Children’s Services

So feel free to come listen and say hi after – or just stop me in the hall and say hi! Either/both is cool.